As the majority of the Gaur population is in South Asia, conservation activities are important there. It is also important that populations are maintained at least in several areas in Southeast Asia, to maintain Gaur presence through its historical range, to preserve Gaur genetic diversity and through its importance to the ecosystems within which it lives. Given the regional pattern of threats and current successes to date, implementing effective conservation interventions is considerably more challenging, and therefore a higher priority in the Southeast Asian region.
Gaur occurs mainly in protected areas in Southeast Asia, although Cambodia and Myanmar may both have large populations outside them and some may persist is such areas in Lao PDR (Duckworth 1996; Hansel 2004). In most protected areas of Lao PDR, Viet Nam and Cambodia which still retain Gaur, protected status offers little, if any, real protection to the species, exceptions being Cat Tien National Park in Viet Nam, the Srepok Wilderness Area and the Siema Biodiversity Conservation Area in Cambodia; in the latter two Cambodian areas, there are now even signs of population recovery (R.J. Timmins pers. comm. 2008), as there are at Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary and Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand, with effective tackling of poaching (R. Steinmetz pers. comm. 2008). Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary and Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary form part of Thailand’s ‘Western Forest Complex’ which if these recent gains are consolidated will, in the long term, hold the largest functional Gaur population in Thailand and perhaps South-east Asia.